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Locals unite to clean up flooded streets

Volunteers have been pouring into Graceville to help with the clean-up.

AAP : Dean Lewins

When the waters from Brisbane's massive floods subsided, the residents of Graceville, Chelmer and Sherwood didn't wait for outside assistance to begin the clean-up.

A fully fledged operation centre sprang up out of Graceville State School to deal with the massive destruction and loss that locals face in the wake of the devastating flood crisis.

Parents and Citizens president Wayne Penning, who spearheaded the operation, said it was obvious that an organisation was need to effectively mobilise the army of volunteers who descended on the suburb to help with the clean-up.

"There's obviously been a huge need that arose on Thursday through to Friday to try and coordinate the clean-up effort," he said.

"A lot of people were offering a lot of help which has been particularly welcome and gratefully received.

"There's also been a lot of people that have approached me and said 'look, we need help, what can you do?'"

Within hours of the meeting, the group had people out assessing the damage, organising food and supplies and looking for heavy machinery needed to remove debris.

"Basically through the P&C, which I'm the president of, we've mobilised a project team of about 20 core people across procurement, equipment, volunteering deployment, food allocation and also just some street reconnaissance and intel about what the needs were," Mr Penning said.

"We had a citizens assembly in our hall at 12.00pm (AEST) on Friday and since then we've mobilised probably about 12,000 people we've got into about 500 homes.

"And at 12.00pm (AEST) today we just handed over that flood clean-up operation centre to the council."

The impromptu centre was able to coordinate the different arms of the recovery effort, including the army, and avoid many of the problems of gridlock which have hampered the clean-up across Brisbane.

"Particularly on Sunday we essentially coordinated the Brisbane City Council volunteers, they came in and had access to our intel in terms of the needs analysis and the types of different categories of cleaning and assistance people needed.

"They basically fed off that and their volunteers were deployed in that regard.

"We've also been assisted by the Army, we had a coordination meeting at our school with the Army and have just tried to ensure they've got cut off areas and we haven't deployed volunteers into [those] areas.

"That enabled the Army to clean up, so much so that yesterday they were able to quadruple their tonnage removal compared to Saturday."

He says the local people are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped out.

"People have come from everywhere, we're aware of couples that have flown up from Canberra, people that have driven from far south-east Queensland," he said.

"People that have of their own accord, hired petrol gurneys and equipment, just to come along.

"The response has been overwhelming, and all I can say is on behalf of all of those who live in Chelmer and Graceville and Sherwood - thanks very much."

Volunteers have continued to pour into the suburb, despite the working week beginning, a sign flood-affected locals will not be quickly forgotten.

Sandy from Burpengary, who interrupted her holiday to lend a hand, said she felt compelled to join the recovery effort.

"I just wanted to lend a hand. We were supposed to have a holiday, but we thought [the clean-up] was more important so that's what we did," she said.

She has been amazed by the response.

"The attitude and spirit is just fantastic, yesterday it was all races and creeds working side by side, it didn't matter who they were, it was just fantastic."

While the Brisbane City Council has ended its volunteer coordination efforts for the time being, people willing to help are encouraged to take action through the Council's Facebook page, with several councillors organising clean-up crews in their wards.